


Parasite

by interlude



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interlude/pseuds/interlude
Summary: Cuckoo birds are something called a brood parasite.--A very short, very late drabble for Staunary 2021 Week 3: Crime
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Stanuary





	Parasite

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea bouncing around, but there wasn't enough to really develop a full fic with it, so I figured I could write a very short drabble and offer it up as a late Stanuary contribution. Mostly I just wanted to be sad about Stan for a few paragraphs and write a short idea that I didn't spent very long on. Enjoy!

Cuckoo birds are something called a brood parasite. They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds in order to pass off the role of parenting and the effort involved to another species, sometimes even destroying the original, authentic eggs in the process, leaving only the intruder behind to soak up the love and protection of the oblivious parent bird. 

Stanley finds this lovely anecdote in one of the books left behind in Ford’s house. Why Ford has a book on birds in the first place is unclear, but it’s at least more entertaining a read than the majority of books his brother owned, which says a lot both about the state of his brother’s bookshelf and his brother himself. But after over a year of reading nothing but psychics and engineering texts far beyond his understanding and his brother’s utterly maddening journal, Stanley is desperate for something else to distract himself with for a while, and he’s already made his way through the few fictional novels Ford owned.

Hence the book on birds.

The story of the cuckoo sticks with him. Much like the bird itself, it burrows itself into a corner of his mind and upsets the natural order, leaving something insidious behind. He turns it over and over in his mind, uncomfortable with the weight of it, but unable to ignore it.

At the farce of a funeral his family had staged for an empty casket and, unknown to them, the wrong twin entirely, his mother had hugged him for the first time in eleven years. His father had not been warm, as he never is, nor particularly affectionate, but he had not turned his back on Stanley or demanded he leave. He had met Sherman’s son, his own nephew, for the first time in his life, and had spent time trading stories of their childhood with the brother he still has left. 

He had finally gained his family back after so many years of longing for it. 

It had only taken kicking his brother out of the nest and taking his house and his name to do so. 


End file.
